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RATIONAL THEOLOGY 

REV. JOHN MILTON WILLIAMS, D. D. 



Contents of Volume I. 



I. 


Old and New Calvinism. 


II. 


The Conscience. 


III. 


Virtue, from a Scientific Stand- 




point. 


IV. 


Regeneration. 


V. 


Divine Sovereignty and Free- 




Agency. 


VI. 


The Atonement. 


VII. 


The Futureof Incorrigible Men. 


VIII. 


The Christ of Nazareth— (Who 




Was He?) 



Contents of Volume II. 

I. The Supreme Law. 
II. Divine Limitations. 

III. The Emotional and Ethical in 
Religion. 

IV. Free Agency and Divine Sover- 
eignty Reconciled. 

V. The Westminster Confession. 
VI. Fairchild's Elements of The- 
ology. 
VII. The Reason in Revealed Re- 
ligion. 
VIII. Morality and Religion. 
IX. Woman's Sphere and Duties. 
X. The Inspiration and Inerrancy 
of the Sacred Scriptures. 
XI. The Unity of Christendom. 

Press and Personal Comments on Volume I. 

A model of clear, cogent discussion . . . The very best popular and practical 
exhibition of current theology, in its free and most rational form, of which we 
have any knowledge. — Independent, New York. 

We know of no essays on the subjects discussed more vigorous, luminous 
and satisfactory than those contained in "Rational Theology."— Ex-President 
J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin. 

Dr. Williams writes an able book. Any Calvinist wishing to hear the other 
side will find him a fair expositor.— New York Evangelist. 

I congratulate you on giving to the public a very able presentation of the 
so-called New Haven theology, in admirable classic English. — Prof. Thomas 
Skinner, McCormick Theological Seminary. 

Among the characteristics of the book is the clearness of its definitions and 
the absence of any evasion in meeting difficulties. I do not believe the author's 
views of virture can be more cogently presented. — Prof. George N. Boardman, 
Chicago Theological Seminary. 

The author has done a great deal of acute, cogent thinking. He does not 
shrink from dealing with the deepest problems of human thought. No one can 
read any part of the book, however he may differ from the views presented, and 
not feel it is the hand of a clear, strong thinker that writes them. — Advance, 
Chicago. 

I do think the essay on conscience closes the case. It is as near a final 
treatment of the subject as I can conceive. I have no language adequate to 
express my gratitude to you for writing these essays. — Rev.Chas. Caverno, LL. D. 

Volume II. 

There are no problems in which men have more at stake than in those 
discussed in this volume, and none in which human life is invested with more 
dignity andimportance. Dr. Williams has been known to us as a strong writer 
and thinker (who is ready with a rational reason for every step in his argument). 
— Independent, New York. 

The author is master of a fine literary style, and is an acute and cogent 
thinker. In theology he is of the New School or New Haven type, and fairly 
represents current practical theology. —Observer, St. Louis. 

As an analytical writer the author has few, if any, superiors; and as a logical 
thinker he ranks among the foremost. His admirable volume will be widely 
welcomed, and make a deep impression. The essay on the Inspiration and 
Inerrancy of the Sacred Scriptures will especially command attention, and they 
ought and doubtless will, have a wide circulation— Christian Work, New York. 

This work contains what is most valuable in systematic theology, which it 
presents in language clear, terse and well nigh ideal. In my full convicton, it is 
by far the most able and lucid exhibit of the New School system of theology in 
the English language.— Rev. S. Bristol, author of " Pioneer Preacher." 

Two volumes, crown octavo, 310 and 325 pages respectively, price $1.25 per 
volume postpaid. Either volume sold separately or the two in a box. 

QHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY, Publishers, 56 Fifth Ave., Chicago, 111. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND 
THE CRITICS. 



BY 



REV. JOHN MILTON WILLIAMS, D. D. 

Author of "The Empire of the Pulpit," '" Rational Theology," Etc. 



Sub hoc Signo Vinces. 



CHICAGO 
CHARLES H. KERR & C 

1898. 




•two COPIES RECEIVED- 






SECOND COPY, 



^\£ 



5L648 



Copyright 1898 
By John Milton Williams 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

I. The Difficulties of the Old Testament, . 11 

II. The Old Testament Corroborated by 

the New, ..... 32 

III. Old Testament Inspiration, . . .41 

IV. Allegorical Interpretations, . . 49 
V. Allegorical Interpretations, . . .68 

VI. Are the Two Testaments Identical in 

Spirit? . . . . . ,81 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS 



INTRODUCTION. 



The object of the author in preparing this 
little volume and taking the liberty of in- 
truding it upon the public, is not the estab- 
lishment of the divine authority of the Old 
Testament. The awful claim of being a 
communication from God to our race, he 
believes should be acknowledged only up- 
on evidence the most unimpeachable. Yet 
the author most fully accepts this claim. 
The evidence on which it rests seems to him 
so ample, so overwhelming and so limitless, 
the thought of adequately presenting it, were 
he able to do so, brings the feeling of weari- 
ness and discouragement. For more than 
thirty centuries the Old Testament, like 
some sacred fountain, has been issuing 
streams of healing, of hope and gladness, 
and every year the evidence of its divine 
origin has been accumulating. 

The object of the author, so far as he is 
able, is rather to remove acknowledged dif- 
ficulties from the Old Testament, by which 
honest inquirers are perplexed and stum- 

9 



INTRODUCTION. 10 

bled. The author lays no claim to enlarged 
scholarship, and is painfully conscious of the 
imperfections of this little book, but having 
been a public teacher of the Sacred Oracles 
for forty years, he is too deeply grounded in 
the conviction that the thought it embodies 
carries the endorsement of the Divine 
Teacher to be easily moved by objections 
and criticisms. 

The Old Testament was essentially what 
it is now, containing the same imperfections 
and difficulties it now contains, and Christ 
virtually cancelled them, when, with perhaps 
the Old Testament in his hand, he offered 
the prayer, " Sanctify them through thy 
truth; thy word is truth," meaning the Old 
Testament is God's word ; it is truth— truth 
more eternal than the hills, and we believe 
by and by it is certain to dominate the con- 
victions of the world. 

The Author. 
597 Cleveland Ave., 
Chicago. 



The Old Testament and the Critics. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

The Bible is now in its crucial period. It 
has probably never passed a severer ordeal. 
Attacks, especially upon the Old Testament 
were never more insidious, persistent, and 
never threatened more harm. They are not 
the attacks of ignorance ; the time of scoff- 
ing has passed by; nor, in the main, are 
these attacks from open enemies. It is not 
from Voltaires, Tom Paines, Ingersolls, we 
have most to fear. Christianity has won too 
many conquests, and planted itself too deeply 
in the soil of this world, to be much affected 
by sneers and coarse invective. Science has 
taken the field ; the attacks come largely 
from scholarship, from patient toil, the mid- 
night lamp, and from professed friends. Its 



12 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

foes are chiefly those of its own household. 
The men with whom we contend use pol- 
ished weapons. "The pen is mightier than 
the sword." To eliminate the supernatural 
from the Old Testament, and, perhaps inad- 
vertently, to remove the pillar on which the 
superstructure of Christianity rests, has been 
the chief end they have sought to accom- 
plish. A Bible devoid of the supernatural, 
whose heroes and martyrs and great men 
are myths, and whose histories are legends, 
is not a revelation from God. It is a mat- 
ter of sorrow to find in the category of so- 
called critics many highly honored names, 
such as Harper, Briggs, Mitchel, Abbott, 
Denney, Driver, Preserved Smith and Gold- 
win Smith. The reader will allow a few 
quotations to indicate the trend of their 
criticisms. 

Professor Goldwin Smith utterly discards 
the inspiration of the Old Testament, and 
rules the supernatural out of it. In his arti- 
cle entitled Christianity s Milestone he says : 
"The time has surely come when they, (the 
Hebrew books), as a supernatural revela- 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 1 3 

tion, should be frankly and reverently laid 
aside, and no longer be allowed to cloud the 
vision of free inquiry, or cast the shadow of 
primeval religion and law over our modern 
life. It is useless and paltering with truth 
to set up, like the writer in Lex Mundi, the 
figment of semi-inspiration, an inspiration 
which errs, which contradicts itself, which 
dictates manifest incredibilities, such as stop- 
ping the sun, Balaam's speaking ass, Elisha's 
avenging bears, the transformation of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, is no inspiration at all."* 

It is not a matter of surprise that one who 
discards the supernatural should discard 
such alleged events and records. Denying 
the supernatural logically necessitates the 
denial of all alleged events involving the 
supernatural, including nearly all the He- 
brew history up to the entrance of Israel 
into Palestine, and many events of a later 
date, events of surpassing interest and im- 
portance, such as the sublime account of 
creation, the establishment of the Sabbath, 
of the marriage relation, the entrance of sin 

* See North American Review Dec, 1896. 



14 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

into this world, the flood, the patriarchal 
history, the captivity of Israel into Egypt 
and their wondrous deliverance, their 
marvellous sojourn in the desert, the 
shekinah, next to the advent of the Son 
of man, the most wondrous thing of his- 
tory ; the sublime and awful grandeur of 
the giving of the law, events transcending 
in interest and meaning almost any others 
the pen has ever recorded — types and her- 
alds of the advent of the Son of God. It is 
divine history which is sought to be erased. 
The Professor from whom I have quoted 
is in doubt as to the deity of the God whom 
the Hebrews worshiped. His language is, 
"Why should we cling any longer to that 
which, whatever it may have been to the 
men of a primeval tribe, is to us a low and 
narrow conception of the Deity ? Why 
should we force ourselves to believe that 
the Being who fills eternity and immensity 
became the guest of a Hebrew sheik, en- 
tered into covenant with the sheiks to the 
exclusion of the rest of the human race?" 
"Judaism," he assures us, "never reached 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 1 5 

the elevation of some of the choice spirits of 
the heathen world, such as Seneca, Epicte- 
tus ; nor ever gained the conception of the 
universality of law, as we find in Plato and 
Cicero." 

It will astonish many to learn that the 
author of the article from which these ex- 
tracts are taken, professedly accepts the 
New Testament as of divine authority, is a 
member of a Christian church, and is termed 
by Rev. Dr. J. C. Woodman, his reviewer, 
"a reverent religious scholar. 5 ' 

The following is from the pen of the 
pastor of one of our largest evangelical 
churches: "That God should tell a father 
(speaking of Abraham) to kill his own child, 
it is not possible to believe ; that God should 
command the children of Israel to extermi- 
nate the Canaanites, destroying women and 
children, it is not possible to believe ; that 
God inspired a persecuted Hebrew captive 
to execrate Babylon in the words, ' O daugh- 
ter of Babylon that art to be destroyed, 
happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as 
thou hast served us ; happy shall he be that 



16 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

taketh and dasheth thy little ones against 
the stones I ' " * Says the same author, " The 
new theology has no hesitation in accepting 
some miracles and rejecting others ; accept- 
ing, for example, the resurrection of Christ 
as a fact sufficiently authenticated, doubting 
the resurrection of saints at the death of 
Christ as insufficiently authenticated, and 
disbelieving the historical character of the 
Jonah legend as not authenticated at all." f 
"In fact, I believe that some of the events 
there recorded, and generally regarded as 
miraculous, did take place ; that others 
there recorded as referred to did not take 
place ; and concerning others there recorded 
I am by no means certain whether they took 
place as recorded, or not. I do not believe 
that the sun stood still and the moon stayed 
in the valley of Ajalon at Joshua's com- 
mand ; I am uncertain as to what interpret- 
ation is to be given to the wonderful stories 
in the Book of Daniel." 

The scholarly Griggs, while accepting the 
religious lessons of the Old Testament as 
divine, finds much of it utterly incongruous 

* Evolution of Christianity, p. 57. 
t Same, p. 114. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. \*J 

with the spirit and teachings of the New. 
He cannot believe God commanded Abra- 
ham to kill his child ; or that he commended 
Jael for treacherously slaying Sisera. He 
does not " believe the spirit of revenge 
breathed in the command to exterminate 
the Canaanites, or that animated the im- 
precatory Psalms, or that threads itself into 
the story of Esther," is the spirit of Christ, or 
of the New Testament. He finds " occasional 
representations of vindictiveness on the part 
of God, jealousy of other gods, with cruel 
disregard of human suffering and life, vac- 
illation of purpose and the passion of an- 
ger. * These he cannot accept as inspired. 
There are real difficulties, no one denies, 
connected with the Old Testament ; things 
which seem, certainly to a superficial view, 
incongruous with the whole spirit of the 
New; and the question is on the lips of 
thousands of honest enquirers, Can we ac- 
cept the Old Testament as a whole, without 
qualification, as of equal inspiration with 
the New ? will modern criticism compel us 
to relegate it, or any part of it, to the cate- 

* See address before Parliament of Religions. 



1 8 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

gory of the human, or even lower our confi- 
dence in its authority and sacredness ? 
These questions, as will be seen in the 
sequel, involve not the Old Testament only, 
but the whole fabric of the Christian faith, 

The difficulties over which our critics 
largely stumble are the alleged incredibilities 
of the book. It is no marvel the men who 
discard the supernatural find them. It is a 
book of wonders ; it deals chiefly with the 
unseen and eternal. Its very atmosphere is 
the mysterious and supernatural ; but the 
reader should not be stumbled by this. It is 
precisely what he should look for. Were it 
(the Old Testament) otherwise the evi- 
dence of its divine authority would be want- 
ing. "If I do not the works," said the 
Great Teacher, "that no other man doeth, 
believe me not." 

If God has made a revelation to the world 
and commissioned chosen men to communi- 
cate it to others, He certainly would have 
provided them some means of confirming 
the fact. " Jesus of Nazareth," says the 
apostle, " was approved of God unto you by 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. I9 

mighty works, by signs and wonders which 
God did by him, in the midst of you." Other- 
wise he could not have been believed. Had 
the prophet on Mt. Carmel assured gathered 
Israel that Jehovah is God and Baal but an 
image, the assertion would probably have 
availed nothing; but when he prayed, "O 
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
and of Israel, let it be known this day that 
I am thy servant, and that I have done all 
these things at thy word ; hear me, O Lord, 
hear me, that this people may know that 
thou Lord art God," instantly fire fell, and 
consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, 
and the stone, and the dust, and licked up 
the water that was in the trenches ; and 
when all the people saw it they fell on their 
faces, and they said, " The Lord, He is God, 
the Lord, He is God." That fire was God's 
indorsement of the prophet, his handwriting 
which no being could counterfeit. So these 
incredibilities are God's endorsement of 
the truths the sacred writers put on record. 
To the Christian they are divine interven- 



20 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

tions ; to our critics they are stumbling 
blocks. 

The logic of the critics is not logical ; it is 
plainly petitio principii. Their syllogism 
reads thus : ( i ) Any alleged event involv- 
ing the supernatural is absurd and untruth- 
ful. (2) Such alleged events as the resi- 
dence of Daniel in a lion's den, Jonah in a 
whale's belly, etc., do involve the super- 
natural. (3) Therefore they are absurd 
and untruthful. A better syllogism reads 
thus : All records endorsed by special divine 
intervention are inspired. All Old Testa- 
ment records are thus endorsed, therefore 
all Old Testament records are divinely in- 
spired. 

The critic creates his own difficulties. He 
reads how Elijah was carried to heaven in a 
chariot of fire ; how the Red Sea opened its 
waters, and a nation passed over on dry 
land. How a great people were fed for 
decades on manna falling every morning 
from heaven. The writers seem to be 
truthful, and their statements well sup- 
ported and generally believed, and he is 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 21 

perplexed. No wonder. He is like the 
man who has convinced himself there is no 
such thing as a sun, and is greatly perplexed 
at the facts which meet his eyes in the 
streets at noonday. There is a very simple 
way out of his dilemma. He has but to con- 
fess he has been mistaken ; that there is a 
sun in the great heavens, but he has been 
too blind to see it. Let the critics do like- 
wise, and these wondrous narratives will 
appear not only credible but just what we 
should have expected. 

But the critics answer us, that some of the 
narratives of the Old Testament are too evi- 
dently absurd to be believed. For example, 
that a deluge once covered the entire globe 
with water, so deep as to bury the high moun- 
tains, which would have required ten or a 
hundred times the water there is or ever was 
upon the earth. There is, we answer, noth- 
in the narrative inconsistent with the theory 
that only the inhabited, a very limited por- 
tion of the globe, was submerged. This 
would have accomplished the end in view; 
and as God, as far as we can see, always ac- 



22 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

complishes His purpose by the simplest and 
least expensive means, this is the logical in- 
terpretation of the narrative. This end was 
effected by the falling rains and the break- 
ing up the fountains of the great deep, or 
the subsidance of the land below the level 
of surrounding waters. The language, "un- 
der the whole heavens" we may regard as 
ad sensum, meaning under the whole sky, 
the only heavens of which anything was 
known. There certainly is no absurdity 
here. 

We are also pointed to the assertion, that 
at the command of Joshua the sun stood 
still for the space of a day in the midst of 
the heavens, and we are assured that such 
an event would have carried disorder 
through the solar system, and made an 
epoch in the world's history ; but we have 
never learned that even a sparrow's nest 
was disturbed. This event, which one of 
our critics insinuates involves falsehood 
enough to vitiate the w T hole Old Testament, 
is usually regarded as one of the simplest 
narratives, involving only an unusual but 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 23 

doubtless miraculous condensation of the 
atmosphere, and so large a consequent re- 
fraction of the rays of the sun, as to have 
made it visible until perhaps late into the 
night. In this way God accomplishes two 
ends, ( 1 ) He confirms the divine commis- 
sion of his servant Joshua; (2) He enabled 
the Hebrew armies to overwhelm their 
enemies before the darkness could conceal 
them. The language is, "And the sun 
stayed in the midst of the heaven, and 
hasted not to go down about a whole day," 
or, as Prof. Bush translates the language, 
"as in a whole (or perfect) day." The 
assertion is ad sensum, precisely like the 
assertions, "the sun rose," and "the sun set." 
The sacred writer doubtless accepted the 
Ptolemaic theory of the universe, and by 
using language ad sensum, he avoids com- 
mitting the narrative to a false theory. "We 
find," says a late writer, speaking of the 
Bible, "marvelous wisdom in reference to 
all matters of science, securing the use of 
popular expressions which are always ap- 



24 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

propiate, and the avoidance of all technical 
terms which imply scientific theory. * 

It is admitted that a clear absurdity, or an 
alleged event which contradicts a rational 
intuition, is incredible, and that no proof 
can establish it. But an absurdity cannot, 
we claim, be found in the Old Testament. 
To one who accepts the book as a special 
revelation from God, its wonders are not 
incredible. The proof is, they have been 
credited by the millions of the best and 
wisest of our race, and denied only by those 
who discard the supernatural. 

The Old Testament, no candid man will 
deny, makes for purity, righteousnes and 
the general good, and when its language 
will bear such a construction, a different one 
is forbidden by every canon of interpreta- 
tion. The book suffers so much from no 
other cause as from the gross violation of 
this universal law. I shall be allowed to 
refer to two such cases: (i) Deut., 14:21, 
"Ye shall not eat anything that dieth of 
itself ; thou mayest give it unto the stranger 

* Fairchild's Elements of Theology, p. 13. 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 2$ 

that is within thy gates, that he may eat it, 
or thou mayest sell it unto the foreigner, 
for thou art a holy people unto the Lord!' To 
interpret this into permission to sell un- 
wholesome food to strangers is a cruel per- 
version of this language. The last clause 
shows, on the face of it, to be utterly inad- 
missible. Because "thou art a holy people 
unto the Lord" would be a remarkable 
reason for permission to cheat and poison 
the defenseless and the poor. The meaning 
is obvious, when we consider that their cere- 
monial law strictly forbade eating the flesh 
of an animal, every drop of whose blood 
had not been extracted in putting it to 
death ; in other words, eating an animal that 
dieth of itself . 

There is another consideration which 
makes this interpretation doubly inadmissi- 
ble, the idea that a Jew was authorized, by 
law, to sell unwholesome food to the stranger 
and the poor, is absurd in view of the then 
stringent laws requiring most tender and 
sacred regard for the rights of this class. 
"Thou shalt not oppress the stranger" was 



26 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

emblazoned on their statute books. Such a 
contradiction as this permission would make 
in their laws was not possible. 

(2) Numbers, 13, is subjected to an inter- 
pretation still more gross and unpardonable. 
Moses, according to the account, sent forth 
the armies of Israel with instructions to 
utterly exterminate the Midianites, their 
cruel, corrupt and corrupting enemies. 
Israel returns from the conflict, bringing 
back large spoil, and the women they had 
taken captive. Moses was angry exceed- 
ingly at their disobedience, especially so as 
the women had been chiefly instrumental in 
seducing Israel into idolatry and its corrupt- 
ing orgies. But he consents to spare the 
lives of the old and young, of whose inno- 
cence he was certain. Now in view of the 
regard of that people for chastity, and the 
stringent laws, even the death penalty pro- 
tecting it, it is inferred that aged law giver 
publicly and by proclamation spared these 
female captives, the aged and the little ones, 
for lewd purposes, and allowed the fact to 
be committed to their nation's history. The 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 27 

suggestion is simply shameful, and doubly 
so when we consider the character of the 
men who constituted that army. It was the 
last army Moses ever sent into the field. 

The chapter in which this event is re- 
corded commences thus: "And the Lord 
spake unto Moses saying, 'Avenge the chil- 
dren of Israel of the Midianites, and after- 
ward thou shalt be gathered unto thy 
fathers.' " Israel was then on the borders of 
the promised land. With two exceptions, 
that whole people had been reared from in- 
fancy, not in Egyptian bondage, but in the 
intense religious atmosphere of the desert, 
overshadowed by the Shekinah, dwelling 
almost in the immediate presence of God. 
Another race of people, excelling them in 
purity of morals and lofty integrity, the 
world's history has probably failed to pro- 
duce. 

The question, whether the records of the 
Old Testament are historical or apochry- 
phal, is not a matter for discussion. They 
are confirmed beyond rational dispute by 
contemporaneous history outside the Bible. 



28 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

The plagues of Egypt, the wondrous exo- 
dus of Israel from Egyptian bondage, their 
passage over the Red Sea, the burial in its 
waters of the armies of Egypt, the giving of 
the law, the wonders of the desert, and the 
sacrifice on Mt. Carmel, occurred not in a 
corner, but in the presence of thousands and 
hundreds of thousands of eye witnesses. 
They occurred when the art of writing was 
generally understood, and when books and 
libraries abounded over Egypt, Syria, Chal- 
dea and Palestine, and were early incorpo- 
rated into, and became a part of the unchal- 
lenged history of the world, and are as well 
attested as the destruction of Jerusalem, or 
the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. 

Is it possible that two million of men and 
women believed they crossed the Red Sea 
on dry ground, shielded from pursuing ar- 
mies by a pillar of cloud and fire, all one 
awful night, had it not been true ! would 
their children and children's children, down 
to the present hour, without, so far as is 
known, a dissenting voice ! and would these 
records stand unchallenged to-day as a part 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 29 

of their national history had they not been 
verities ? It would savor of infatuation to 
believe it. 

No other history has ever been regarded 
so sacred, or been guarded with such sleep- 
less vigilance as the annals of the Hebrew 
people. Says Josephus, a Jew of great learn- 
ing and influence, born seven years after 
the crucifixion : " How firmly we have given 
credit to these books of our nation (the Old 
Testament) is evident by what we do; for 
during so many ages as have already elaps- 
ed, no one has been so bold as either to add 
anything to them or take away anything 
from them. But it has become natural to 
all Jews immediately and from their birth, to 
esteem these books to contain divine doc- 
trines, and to persist in them, and if occasion 
comes, be willing to die for them, for it is 
no new thing for our captives, many of 
them in numbers, and frequently in time, to 
be seen to endure racks and death of all 
kinds upon the theatres, that they may not 
be obliged to say one word against our laws, 
or the records that contain them. Whereas 



30 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

there are none in all among the Greeks who 
would endure the least harm on that account, 
no, not in the case if all their writings, 
which are among them, were to be de- 
stroyed." 

The knowledge of the Old Testament 
events was not limited to the Hebrew peo- 
ple. It was gathered up, committed to 
writing to a greater or less extent, and in 
part constituted the contents of books and 
libraries. The histories, or clear allusions 
to them, are found engraven on monuments 
and tombstones and buried rocks, where 
they have been sleeping in silence and for- 
getfulness for thousands of years. These 
are being exhumed by the spade of the 
archeologist, and are to a degree dupli- 
cating the Old Testament, and to a won- 
derful extent are corroborating the sacred 
records. That fourteenth chapter of Gen- 
esis, long the arsenal of the skeptic and 
critic, now gives the most unimpeachable 
testimony to the accuracy of the Old Testa- 
ment historians. The Tell Amarna tablets, 
and almost every added discovery, is but a 



DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 31 

new witness to the veracity of the Old Test- 
ament. And "there's more to follow." 

I am sure we shall soon hear from the 
skeptic the cry of the dying emperor, "O 
Galilean, thou hast conquered !" The 
spade is becoming conqueror, mightier than 
the pen or the sword. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE OLD TESTAMENT CORROBORATED 

BY THE NEW. 

He who accepts the divine authority of 
the New Testament logically accepts that of 
the Old. 

The two are inseparable, so interlinked 
and interwoven together, as to make them 
a unit. The avowal of belief in one, and 
disbelief in the other, is an absurdity, a 
self contradiction. The strongest support 
of the divine authority, and the historical ac- 
curacy of the Old Testament is found in the 
hundred times repeated indorsement of the 
New. "If ye had believed Moses," says the 
Master, "ye would have believed me"; 
and he might have added, If ye had be- 
lieved me, ye would have believed Moses, 
"for he wrote of me." 

At the time of Christ, the books of the 
Old Testament — all now recognized by 
Protestants as inspired, and no others were 



THE OLD TESTAMENT CORROBORATED. 33 

bound in a single volume under the names 
"the Word," "the Law," "Scriptures," "The 
Law and the Prophets" — were in common use 
among the Jewish people, were read in their 
synagogues on the Sabbath, and venerated as 
no other book was ever venerated, as of di- 
vine authority, and as such it was as clearly 
indorsed by the Great Teacher of Galilee as 
it is possible to indorse a book. "Think 
not," he says "I came to destroy the Law 
and the Prophets. I came not to destroy, 
but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till 
heaven and earth pass away, one jot or tittle 
shall in no wise pass from the law, till all 
things be accomplished ; whosoever there- 
fore shall break one of these least command- 
ments, and teach men so, shall be called 
least in the Kingdom of heaven. But who- 
soever shall do and teach them shall be 
called great in the Kingdom of heaven." 

No candid man will say here is not a clear 
and emphatic endorsement of the divine 
character of the Old Testament. Christ 
stakes the destiny of men upon breaking or 
keeping its precepts. 



34 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

He teaches this truth in a manner tran- 
scendently solemn in the parable of the rich 
man and the beggar. He represents the 
former as in the regions of despair, and 
after having abandoned all hope for him- 
self, lifting to heaven the cry " Father Abra- 
ham, send Lazarus to my father's house, for 
I have five brethren, that he may testify 
unto them, lest they also come into this 
place of torment." But the answer comes 
back, "They have Moses and the Prophets, 
let them hear them." 

But the lost man continues to plead, " Nay 
father Abraham, but if one go to them from 
the dead, they will repent." The crushing 
answer comes back, "If they hear not 
Moses and the Prophets, neither will they 
be persuaded if one rise from the dead," 
and the poor man is silent. The mean- 
ing of this is, the Old Testament is the 
most effective instrumentality God has 
provided for the salvation of man. If this 
fails the bell may toll ; nothing else will 
avail, not even one coming back from the 
dead. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT CORROBORATED. 35 

To the same effect is the Master's asser- 
tion, John 5 139: "Ye search the Scriptures 
because ye think that in them ye have eter- 
nal life, and these are they which bear wit- 
ness of me, and ye will not come to me that 
ye may have life." This is the language of 
sadness and astonishment, — meaning, ye 
search the Old Testament and know what 
it contains, and yet refuse to come to me 
for life. 

Similar testimony could be adduced to 
almost any extent. The New Testament is 
the complement of the Old. Each is incom- 
plete without the other. The New Testa- 
ment explains the Old, enforces its pre- 
cepts, confirms its histories, and vouches 
over and over again for its divine authority. 
It refers with more or less detail to many of 
its miracles, and its great histories, such as 
the creation of man and woman, the 
apostacy, the deluge, the exodus of Israel 
from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, 
the wonders of the desert, the ass speaking 
with man's voice, the sublime events of Mt. 
Carmel, and numerous others, yet casts no 



36 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

shadow of doubt upon the validity of a sin- 
gle statement. 

Even Prof. Smith is compelled to acknowl- 
edge that " Christ accepted the sacred 
books, and in addressing an audience which 
believed in them, cited them and appealed 
to their authority. He cited the book of 
Jonah, and in terms which seem to show he 
regarded it as real history. Few, even the 
most orthodox, would now profess to believe 
that Jonah sojourned in the belly of a fish. 
St. Paul in like manner treats the narrative 
of the fall of Adam as historical, and con- 
nects a doctrine with it, though the mythical 
character of the narrative is admitted by a 
dignitary of the church. And the evangel- 
ists find in the sacred books of their nation 
prognostications of the character and mis- 
sion of Jesus." And we are amazed he 
should add, "no specific prediction of the ad- 
vent of Jesus, or any event of his life, can be 
produced from the books of the Old Testa- 
ment." 

So interlinked are the Old and New Test- 
ament, the former is regarded by the Chris- 



THE OLD TESTAMENT CORROBORATED. 37 

tian world as Messianic. It seems to have 
been the great object of the former to ac- 
quaint the world with Christ and the nature 
of his mission ; to prepare the world for his 
advent and furnish proof of his Messiahship. 
So the Master himself teaches. " All things," 
he says, "must be fulfilled which are written 
in the law and ,in the prophets concerning 
me." "Search the Scriptures, for these are 
they which bear witness of me." " If ye had 
believed Moses ye would believe me, for he 
wrote of me." "Beginning," says the evan- 
gelist, "with Moses and all the prophets, he 
interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the 
things concerning himself." Christ repre- 
sents himself as being the great theme of 
the Old Testament Scriptures. 

Can there be clearer testimony to the in- 
spiration of the Old Testament than Acts 
4:25: "The Holy Ghost by the mouth of 
our father y David, didst say, ' Why do the 
heathen rage, and the people imagine a 
vain thing.'" Hebrews i :i : "God having 
spoken unto the fathers in the Prophets in 
divers portions and in divers manners, hath 



38 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

at the end of these days spoken unto us in 
his Son." " Thus saith the Lord" is a for- 
mula with the Prophets. We have the ex- 
pression, "The Lord spake unto Moses," 
more than an hundred times in the Penta- 
teuch. "The prophecy came not in old 
times," says the apostle, "by the will of 
man, but holy men of God spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost." How it 
is possible to accept the divine authority of 
the New Testament, and reject that of the 
Old, certainly needs explanation. 

There are difficulties in the Old Testa- 
ment, and there are difficulties out of the 
Old Testament. In the natural world there 
are wonders, unanswered questions, inexpli- 
cable things. We are environed on every 
side by mysteries ; the best way out of them 
is not the denial of the divine existence, for 
it only deepens the mysteries around us. 
Nor is the denial of the supernatural the 
best way out of Old Testament difficulties. 
It only increases the darkness and compli- 
cates the riddle. "I would give all I possess 
in the world, and all this world beside, were 



THE OLD TESTAMENT CORROBORATED. 39 

it mine," said an aged atheist, " could I be- 
lieve there is a God, for the rest it would 
bring." 

That awful thinking intelligence within, 
whose thoughts "wander through eternity," 
needed rest. He felt himself on a dark and 
shoreless ses. lost — darkness above, dark- 
ness beneath, darkness and mystery every- 
where. There is but one resting place in 
this universe, that is in God ; here, and no- 
where else is rest unto the intellect and unto 
the soul. Eliminating supernaturalism from 
the Old Testament is eliminating it from 
the New, and virtually leaves a man "with- 
out God in the world." 

A somewhat popular theory, "The Old 
Testament contains the word of God, rather 
than is the word of God," removes no diffi- 
culty. The objection fatal to this theory is, 
we have no canon determining what por- 
tions are the word of God and what por- 
tions are not the word of God, and conse- 
quently it is not possible with any degree of 
certainty to predict divine authority of any 
particular chapter or verse, and practically 



40 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

the theory voids the whole Bible of the 
divine element. The word of God may be 
in the Old Testament, but if we have no 
means of knowing where, it is of no practi- 
cal value. This theory is applicable to the 
New Testament as well as the Old, and vir- 
tually robs us of the revelation God has 
given. 

Prof. Briggs, who adopted this theory, 
draws the line between the secular and relig- 
ious lessons of the Bible. But such a line, 
were it possible to draw it, affords us no re- 
lief, since it is the religious lessons to which 
its difficulties mainly, if not wholly pertain. 

It seems to me we should hesitate long 
before adopting this mode of removing the 
difficulties of the Old Testament, as it allows 
anyone to deny the divine authority of any 
promise, or precept, or declaration he may 
choose, and instead of removing the diffi- 
culties of the Old Testament, it removes the 
Old Testament and also the New. 



CHAPTER III. 

OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 

Inspiration, either of the Old Testament 
or of the New Testament, involves two ele- 
ments, (i) the inbreathing by the Holy 
Spirit thoughts into the minds of chosen 
men, by means of visions, dreams, words, or 
by any other means. (2) Such superin- 
tendence and aid of the Holy Spirit as was 
requisite to secure a fair and adequate em- 
bodiment of these truths in writing. 

In reference to the first element, there 
can, it would seem, be no doubt as to the in- 
errance of the thought communicated. It is 
hardly thinkable the Holy Spirit would 
communicate untruth or error; we may, I 
think, lay it down as axiomatic that an in- 
spired thought is an inerrant thought. 

In reference to the second element, the 

question has long been before the Christian 

world, as to the extent of aid the inspired 
41 



42 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

received from the Inspirer. Just here prob- 
ably lies the difference, if there be any, be- 
tween Old and New Testament inspiration. 
A correct theory of inspiration is of prime 
importance in this discussion, especially in 
dealing with the alleged difficulties of both 
the Old and the New Testaments. Defect- 
ive theories are the source of a large share 
of them. The Bible has suffered much from 
this source, especially from what is termed 
plenary inspiration in its various phases. It 
has proved, I think, "one of the Bible's mill- 
stones." The idea that the Bible is, or was 
as it came from the hands of its original 
writers, absolutely inerrant or that the 
sacred penmen were little other than 
amanuenses copying the language dictated 
by the Holy Spirit, assuming any error is in- 
combatable with inspiration, puts a very 
effective weapon into the hands of the skep- 
tic, (i) This theory cannot be proved. (2) 
It would add nothing to the authority or 
value of inspiration if it could. (3) It is 
assuming an unnecessary burden, one we 
are unable to carry, and laying ourselves 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 43 

open to criticism and defeat. (4) The 
theory is both unscriptural and untrue. The 
writer of the Hebrews sets it aside by a sin- 
gle word, 1:1: "God having of old time 
spoken unto the fathers in the Psalms and 
in the Prophets in divers portions and in 
divers manners, hath in those last days 
spoken unto us in his Son." It will occur to 
the reader of the Old Testament that God 
largely employed, not words alone, but vis- 
ions and dreams as modes of communicating 
truth. 

The theory of inspiration most satisfac- 
tory to my mind, is the one suggested by 
the author of Rational Theology. * The 
author distinguishes broadly between a 
truth or thought and the language in which 
it is clothed, a distinction which we think 
everyone recognizes. Everyone admits he 
has ideas he is unable to embody in lan- 
guage. The theory holds that the former, 
the thought, contained in the Holy Scrip- 
tures is divine and inerrantly inspired. The 
latter, the language, is so far inspired as to 
make it a fair exponent of the divine thought, 

* Pp. 286, 287, vol. II. 



44 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

leaving the writer to his own discretion in 
the choice of language. Thus introducing 
two elements into the holy Scriptures, a 
hnman and a divine, one inerrant, the other 
subject to the infirmities and imperfections 
of all that is human. 

In the words of another, he defines inspi- 
ration as "that guidance from above, where- 
by the sacred penmen were preserved from 
all errors which would interfere with the 
ends the Holy Spirit had in view, in giving 
a revelation to man." In a word, the Holy 
Spirit saw fit to correct only such errors as 
would impair the meaning or value of the 
truth he sought to communicate, and to pro- 
tect it only from such defects as would per- 
vert or obscure its meaning. As the result of 
this human element, the author believes the 
Bible more valuable, inasmuch as it is better 
adapted to human weakness, just as was the 
Son of man in "being made like unto his 
brethren." 

This theory of inspiration, as will be seen, 
tides us over the bad grammar, the defec- 
tive logic, the feeble metaphor, and indeed 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 45 

the major part of the difficulties of which 
the critics complain. These are not the 
defects of inspiration, but of the ignorance 
and carelessness of the sacred writers. 

When on meeting an inaccuracy in the 
Bible, or a discrepancy between its writers, 
the question is not, Is it an error ? but is it 
an error which affects the lesson the Holy 
Spirit intended to impart ? If it does not, 
inspiration is in no sense responsible for it. 
It lies outside the sphere of inspiration. 
The Holy Spirit did not purpose to correct 
all the errors of the sacred writers. Its 
work was accomplished in securing an ade- 
o^ate expression of the thought He pur- 
posed to convey. The discrepancy between 
the evangelists Matthew and John, as to the 
color of the robe worn by Christ at his trial, 
or between Matthew and Luke as to how 
many blind men were restored to sight near 
Jericho, or as to the exact spot where the 
miracle occurred, were no more defects of 
inspiration than would have been inaccura- 
cies in orthography. This simple theory of 



46 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

inspiration removes the larger share of the 
Old Testament difficulties. 

In what consists the difference between 
the inspiration of the Old and the New 
Testaments ? Did it consist in the larger 
amount of divine aid imparted to the New 
Testament writers ? or in their superior cul- 
ture, or superior ability to express inspired 
truth in a clear and more incisive language ? 
I see no evidence of this. The writers of 
the Old Testament were not inferior men. 
It is questionable whether history mentions 
a greater name than Moses. Samuel was a 
remarkable man, a man of overshadowing 
influence. During his active life he held 
the reins of authority over a great people, 
The reigning monarch was a child in his 
presence. He was above the throne. The 
names of Isaiah and David will be honored 
and wept over while human hearts pulsate. 
And the writer of the book of Job ranks 
among the greatest poets of the world. The 
writers of the New Testament were better 
instructed in the things of God. They had 
basked in the rays of the Sun of righteous- 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 47 

ness, as the writers of the Old had not. Of 
the two, if we may compare infinities, the 
New is the richer and the more valuable, as 
it contains the earthly history and teaching 
of the Son of man. But both are products 
of the same author. They speak in the 
same language and by the same authority, 
and breathe the same spirit. I see no dif- 
ference as to the degree and extent of their 
inspiration. 

But it is objected that considerable por- 
tions of the Old Testament could not have 
been inspired, because quoted from other 
writers. That there are quotations in the 
Old Testament, as in the other books, no 
one doubts. The earlier records of Genesis 
might have been extracts from monuments 
antedating the life of Moses more than a 
thousand years. The beautiful epic of the 
prophetess Hannah, the song of the He- 
brews lifted on the banks of the Red Sea, 
over the graves of Egypt's armies, were 
quotations ; and probably the whole book of 
Job was written by some Homer of earlier 
times. But if incorporated into the sacred 



48 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

canon under divine direction, and endorsed 
by the Great Teacher, the evidence of 
their divine inspiration is not in the least 
impaired. 

It is not claimed these quotations were in 
every respect inerrant. But I think we may 
with certainty claim they contain no deadly 
thing, and no word or thought has been in- 
corporated into the sacred canon which inter- 
feres with the end the Inspirer had in view 
in giving a revelation to men. 

It is asked whether inspiration includes 
events which were perfectly familiar to the 
sacred writer, and of general notoriety. I 
answer, it is not credible any event has 
crept into the sacred volume unauthorized 
by the sacred Author. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 

The use of language is to convey thought, 
and the paramount question of the reader 
should always be, What is the exact thought 
the writer intended to convey? The pre- 
sumption always is, it is to be found in the 
plain, obvious import of his language, and 
so his language should be interpretated un- 
less there are adequate reasons for inter- 
preting it otherwise. By an unvarying 
canon of interpretation the burden of proof 
lies on the side of an allegorical or figura- 
tive meaning. 

In the New Testament we read, "Jesus 
was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days 
of Herod," and "he was baptized of John in 
Jordan," and no one ever put a construction 
upon the words other than their plain literal 
import. In the Old Testament we read the 
equally plain assertion, "In the beginning 

49 



50 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

God created the heavens and the earth;" 
and, "He formed man out of the dust of the 
ground and breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life, and he became a living soul," 
and the Christian public is desirous of 
knowing why the one quotation is accepted 
in its obvious meaning, and an interpreta- 
tion is given the other as diverse from its 
obvious meaning as would be the history of 
France. Can any reason for this be sug- 
gested ? The scenes of the creation were 
probably presented to the eyes of the seer 
like a panorama, and we have the right to 
assume he committed to writing as accurate 
a description as his limited language would 
allow; and we find the character and order 
of events certainly not inconsistent with the 
best and latest results of scientific research. 
If there are good reasons for making one of 
the quotations literal and the other alle- 
gorical, it certainly is not obvious. 

This world exists and somehow came 
into being, and so did man and beast. Can 
anyone suggest a genesis more natural, 
credible, or one less offensive to our fastid- 



ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 5 I 

ious critics, than the one given by Moses ? 
Our critics are ready with an answer. They 
assure us that the law of evolution presents 
a theory of creation more simple, natural, 
probable, and vastly less objectionable, the 
scientific theory, the one all scientific men 
are accepting. 

Says Dr. Lyman Abbott, "All scientific 
men to-day are evolutionists, that is, they 
agree substantially that all life proceeds 
by regular and orderly sequence, from the 
simple to the complex, from lower to higher 
forms, in accordance with laws, which either 
are now or may be understood." "Evolu- 
tion," says Le Compt, " is progression, ac- 
dording to certain laws, and by means of 
resident forces." The only phase of this 
theory pertaining to our subject, is its rela- 
tion to the genesis of man, It holds that 
man sprang ages ago from protoplasm, or 
the earliest germ of animal life, and by 
some resident force, either inherent potency 
of matter or divine energy, has been de- 
veloped through all the grades of animal 



52 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

existence to his present altitude in accord- 
ance with fixed laws. 

"Man," says Dr. Abbott, "is an animal, 
about this there can be no doubt ; a verte- 
brate animal, belonging to the class mam- 
mel, and by most scientists classed in the 
family of apes, and has ascended from a 
lower animal. There is absolutely no ques- 
tion that every individual of the race has 
passed through animal stages in reaching 
manhood. I embrace the conclusions of the 
embriologists, we are animals, we ascended 
from lower animals." President Jordan, of 
the Leland Stanford University, is even 
more explicit. " Homologies," he says, 
"more perfect than those connecting man 
with the great group of monkeys could not 
exist. These embrace the hosts of apes 
and monkeys ; as to this there can be no 
doubt, and as similar relations with all 
members of the group mammels, blood re- 
lations must exist. It is perfectly true that 
with the higher anthropoid apes, the rela- 
tions are extremely intimate." * 

* The Arena, August, 1897. 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 53 

Is this the allegorical interpretation and 
real thought the sacred writer intended to 
convey in Gen. i -.26-27 : " And God said let 
us make man in our image after our like- 
ness." " And God created man in his own 
image, in the image of God, created he him. 
Male and female created he them." Gen. 
2:6.: "And the Lord formed man out of 
the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath of life, and man be- 
came a living soul." Is there anything in 
the evolution theory that suggests the 
Mosaic genesis of woman or is even consist- 
ent with it ? No, the Mosaic language is 
just as legitimately allegorized into the his- 
tory of the war of the Revolution as into 
the evolution theory. Still Dr. Abbott has 
attempted it. "In a sense," he says, "it is 
true scientifically, that God has made man 
out of the dust of the earth — that is, out of 
lower forms, reaching back through various 
formations to the inorganic, dating man's 
genesis back of vegetable life to the inor- 
ganic." Prof. Guyot's "Scheme of Recon- 
ciliation" is much preferable, for the reason 



54 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

no one ever understood it, and no one has 
the right to call it absurd. There are very 
many, and as it seems to us, insuperable ob- 
jections to the theory of evolution, espe- 
cially as it relates to the genesis of man. 

(i) It is utterly unrelated to, and appar- 
ently incongruous with, the theory recorded 
in the sacred Scriptures and clearly in- 
dorsed by the Great Teacher. 

(2 ) It seems to contain no practical lesson, 
no valuable or important thought, even if 
true. It affords no relief to the skeptic. It 
does not remove the supernatural from the 
Bible, the existence of a personal God from 
the universe, or the awful sense of obliga- 
tion from the human soul. It required the 
same infinite intelligence and recourses to 
breathe that mysterious thing we call life 
into protoplasm six hundred thousand years 
ago, it did to breathe it six thousand years 
ago into a perfected human form. There is 
necessarily no atheism in it to commend it to 
the atheist. 

(3) The unanswerable objection to its 
theory of the genesis of man, is of a nega- 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 55 

tive character. There is not the slightest 
evidence, so far as I am able to discover, of 
its truth. It is hardly thinkable, if this pro- 
gression of life upward by established law, 
has been going forward through uncounted 
centuries, and not the slightest evidence of 
it, on the surface of the ground, or in the 
rock beneath us, though searched for as for 
hidden treasure, has ever been found. 
Though if this theory be true, nine-tenths 
if not ninety-nine one-hundredths of animal 
life must have been spent in this transitional 
state, between lower and higher species of 
animals, yet nothing of the kind, dead or 
living has ever been seen. This fact simply 
cancels the evolution theory, so far as it 
pertains to the genesis of man. 

Can there be a clearer antithesis than 
that between this theory and the declaration 
Gen. 1 :25 "And God made the beasts of 
the field after his kind, and the cattle after 
their kind, and everything that creepeth on 
the ground after its kind," making each 
species of animal sui generis, so far as is 
known, and so to all appearance it has 



$6 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

remained. It is well said that no one species 
of animal has ever been transmuted into an- 
other. The dog has made no approach to 
man, since he was in the garden of Eden ; 
and there is no shadow of evidence he has 
undergone any change since the hour he 
first took his place on the theatre of this 
world. Nor so far as appears, has there 
been any essential change in man. He was 
just as noble and perfect the hour God 
"breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
life, and he became a living soul," as now; 
and, 

"When mid the wonder and surprise 
Of circling angels, woman's eyes 
First opened upon heaven and earth, 
And from their lids a beam was sent 
That through each living spirit went 
Like first thought, through the firmanent," 

she was just as loving, and beautiful and 
loved as now. 

(4) If this resident force, of which we 
hear so much, is the eternal energy from 
which all things proceed, and as Dn Abbott 
assures us, is "a constant force, never in- 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION* 57 

creased or diminished, and never admits of 
intervention," the unequal progress upward 
of animal life needs explanation. How is it 
that of a family of tadpoles, for example, all 
equal a thousand centuries ago, but to-day 
one branch has evolved into human beings, 
while another remains unchanged. One, 
to-day has his seat in the United States 
Senate, another keeps his place in the vil- 
lage mill-pond. How is it that the lower 
animals, which, as science shows, have been 
on this globe ages longer than man, have 
been so strangely outstripped. All the 
lower animals would, were this science true, 
have been developed into men centuries 
ago, and men would have been the only liv- 
ing beings on our planet. There certainly 
are some things about evolution hard to be 
understood. 

(5) It is unfortunate that the advocates 
of evolution are not sufficiently agreed 
among themselves to formulate a clear, in- 
telligible definition of their science. It 
would be greatly to their advantage to know 
definitely what they are talking about. 



58 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

Charles R. Darwin, the reputed father of 
the science, never accepted the doctrine of 
resident force, which constitutes the essen- 
tial element of the system. He believed 
in the progression of animals upward, but 
attributed it to the " struggle for life" and 
the " survival of the fittest." 

Very few certainly agree with Dr. Abbott 
that man was once a vegetable, or deny 
there are second catises, which involves a 
denial of human free agency, of accounta- 
bility, and the possibility of guilt, and cer- 
tainly few believe sin is an inheritance be- 
queathed the human race from the lower 
animals, which never had any sin. 

Nor do many evolutionists agree with 
President Jordan, who includes in this 
"enormous science" not only "all natural 
history, not only processes like cell divisions 
and nutrition ; not only the laws of varia- 
tion, natural selection and mutual help, but 
all matters of human history and the most 
complicated relations of civics, economics, 
and ethics." We are glad to know there is 
one department of human knowledge the 






OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 59 

President does not include in the " greatest 
of all sciences," that is religion. His lan- 
guage is: "There are many definitions of 
religion, but evolution does not fit any of 
them." The definition of Prof. McKenzie, 
who makes the terms evolution and conti- 
nuity synonyms, is a good one, as it can be 
made to mean anything we choose ; but I 
think most educated men would prefer verba, 
praeterea nihil. 

Dr. Behrends asserts "the word evolution 
has never yet been defined. Everyone uses 
it, yet no one seems able to give it a defini- 
tion which is clear and final. No magician's 
wand ever played so many fantastic tricks 
as can this word ; it can be theistic or athe- 
istic. It can at one time bow God out of 
the universe ; at another make him imma- 
nent and personal in every action." 

Many calling themselves evolutionists I 
profoundly respect as scholars and Chris- 
tians, many of whom have given the subject 
of evolution years of thought, and seem 
deeply impressed with its vastness and 
value. I am far from claiming to be au- 



60 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

thority on the science, and were I not under 
the impression that multitudes, probably the 
vast majority of educated men, think sub- 
stantially as I do, it would be with hesitancy 
and self-distrust I should acknowledge, as I 
now do, that I have no recollection of ever 
having seen an argument for the evolution 
theory, so far as it relates to the genesis of 
man, which carried to my mind the shadow 
of plausibility. 

The argument which I have met most 
frequently is the embryonic resemblance, 
growth, changes, etc., of all animals. Does 
this prove that all animals, including man, 
originated in the same stock ? The roots of 
the apple tree and the oak, in their earlier 
growth, probably so closely resemble each 
other as to be indistinguishable ; does that 
prove their genesis was the same germ ? Is 
there force enough in this consideration to 
set aside the divine declaration of making 
everything " after its kind"? But the ma- 
turity and fruit of the apple and oak proves 
the roots of these trees are not alike, though 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 6l 

the difference is imperceptible even to the 
microscope ; and we may be pretty sure em- 
bryos of different animals are not alike. 
The argument is a manifest non seguitur. 

In proof of evolution, we are referred to 
the testimony of primitive rocks. Says a 
late writer : "The lowest races of men exist- 
ing at the present time fairly represent men 
as they must have been tens and hundreds 
of thousands of years ago, like the aborig- 
ines of Australia, or the Bushmen of Africa, 
prowling about, living very much as the ani- 
mals they hunt, and with which they com- 
pete for food, sheltering in dens and holes, 
their social relations not much above those 
of prairie dogs and horses, with the scanti- 
est language, with little or no intellectual 
life, with ideas of right and wrong, truth and 
error, which can scarcely be identified as 
such. In short, what these men are now, 
such, and even lower, were primeval men, 
such too have they continued to be for thou- 
sands and hundreds of thousand years." 

This does not strike us as satisfactory 



62 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

proof of a universal law of evolution. If 
primitive man were little, if any, above the 
brute, and so remained for thousands and 
hundreds of thousands of years, it is not 
perfectly evident where the proof comes in, 
" That all life proceeds by regular and or- 
derly sequence from lower to higher forms, 
from the simple to the complex, by means 
of resident force." That there might have 
been such men in the early ages, no one 
doubts, but we learn from archeological ex- 
plorers, that in the early times, while some 
tribes were very uncivilized, other tribes 
were very civilized ; while some lived in 
caves, others lived in palaces. We have no 
more authority for calling the age in which 
some tribes cut their hair and carved their 
food with sharpened stones, the "Stone 
age" than we have to call the present age in 
which the Fiji Islanders eat men, the can- 
nibal age. 

It is not scholarly to decry the past. 
There has been, admittedly, a great amount 
of ignorance and brutality on the planet, 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 63 

and there Has been a large amount of in- 
tellectual and moral greatness. Every age 
has had its great men, its poets, its prophets 
and seers, its heroes and statesmen, its 
Plato, whose birth antedates the Christian 
era more than four hundred years, whose 
name to-day is as familiar to scholars as 
household words, its Homer, born a thous- 
and years before Christ, its Abraham, whose 
birth dates back almost to the flood, but 
whose name is to-day on the lips of an 
hundred million men and women. These 
are among the greatest names history re- 
cords. We can trace back many a century, 
an almost world-wide tradition of a golden 
age that was. It is a remarkable fact that 
probably no tradition has planted itself more 
deeply in human memory. Dillman de- 
scribes it as "a belief spread through all 
antiquity." Ex-Pres. Bartlett in his Ver- 
acity of the Hexeteuch, calls it "the con- 
sensus of antiquity!' There is no greater 
mistake than that the world was first 
peopled by savages, or that man in his in- 



64 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

fancy was a wild beast. The art of writing, 
books and schools probably antedated the 
flood. 

Whatever else may be true of the science 
of evolution, if we may call it a science, its 
theory of the genesis of man is not true. 
To my mind it is not conceivable that a nat- 
ural law called evolution, without some 
outward and higher intervention, has lifted 
the lower animals over the immeasurable 
gulf which lies between brutality, on the one 
side, and intelligence, accountability and 
immortality on the other. I would, in the 
language of the scholarly Agassiz, say: "Of 
the two, I prefer the theory that the primi- 
tive man was a fallen angel, to the theory 
he was an improved monkey." 

A natural law is uniform, unintermittant, 
and universal in its action. The alleged law 
of evolution is neither. There is in this uni- 
verse no universal progression from the sim- 
ple to the complex, from the lower to the 
higher. 

The great rhythm of things moves in two 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 65 

directions. There is growth, and there is 
decay ; there is progress and there is retro- 
gression, and the two pretty nearly balance 
each other. I believe the world is growing 
better, but it is the result of herculean 
effort, not of natural law. Men and nations 
let alone, like the clock, run down. 

"The earliest literature of a nation," says 
a recent writer, "is not always its poorest, 
nor its latest its best. Socrates and Plato 
and Aristotle are still unrivaled. We are 
not more skillful builders than the men who 
reared the Pyramids. We have not sur- 
passed the old masters in painting, sculp- 
ture and music. In the realm of science 
evolution is an unproved theory. In the 
realm of literature it is demonstrably false!' 
"Growth, development, evolution," says 
Dr. Abbott, "are synonyms." If to a pile of 
sand additions are daily made, and none re- 
moved, it will grow, but if additions cease to 
be made, it will cease to grow. Can this 
growth properly be said to be made by resi- 
dent forces? If contributions be made from 



66 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

water, the atmosphere, and from the soil to 
a tree, it will grow to maturity; if whole- 
some food be fed a child it will thrive, but 
if its natural nutriment be withheld from 
either, it will die. Resident forces cannot 
keep either a child or tree alive an hour. 
Can it properly be said that their growth is 
evolution, or effected by resident forces ? 
Can any material thing increase without ad- 
ditions from without ? God built the solar 
system, perhaps from preexisting material, 
as the carpenter builds our residences from 
preexisting material ; can we attribute the 
existence of either to evolution or resident 
forces. Adam knew all this when in the 
garden of Eden. Has evolution added any- 
thing new ? I confess I see no need of this 
new science, called by one of its advocates 
"the grandest generalization of this or any 
other age." 

Serious objections other than those of a 
negative character are charged against the 
evolution theory. It is believed by many 
that in at least some of its aspects, to be in- 



OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRATION. 67 

imicable to the great doctrines of the Chris- 
tian religion. But this hardly seems possible 
of a system that numbers among its adher- 
ants such men as McCosh and the lamented 
Drummond, yet all are obliged to confess, it 
seems to have played havoc with the faith 
of some who were once pillars in the temple 
Christ is erecting. 



CHAPTER V. 

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 

The alleged histories of the Old Testa- 
ment, such as the Mosaic cosmogony, the 
story of the creation of man and woman, of 
the garden of Eden, and the trees in its 
midst, the temptation and fall, the flood, the 
confusion of tongues, etc., the great Teacher 
accepted, and so did all his inspired follow- 
ers, as historical ; and so has the church 
through all these intervening centuries 
treated them as it has other reliable his- 
tory, accepting that which is allegorical as 
allegorical, and that which is not plainly 
allegorical it has accepted in its simple ob- 
vious meaning, assuming the truth of God 
is expressed in language common people 
can understand. Nor has the church ever 
been stumbled by its great histories and 
miracles, knowing well that a divine com- 
munication must be attested by divine in- 
terpositions. 

19 



ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 69 

The presumption is, God, in addressing 
our race in its early infancy, certainly if just 
emerging from the weakness and ignorance 
of the lower animals, would not have em- 
ployed riddles, or concealed his meaning 
under types and figures which only the 
astute and learned can decipher. It would 
seem at least to us, the simplest statement, 
such as we address to the child, would be 
more appropriate. 

The obvious meaning of the sacred record 
— any other is forced, unnatural, and in the 
circumstances inadmissible — is that Adam 
and Eve were a new creation, and that their 
advent into this world introduced a new 
order of things. It was the world's great 
epoch. Its sovereigns had come to their 
possessions with the scepter in their hands. 
Henceforth the beasts of the field, the birds 
of the air, and the fish of the sea had a 
master. 

In the work of creation, when all else was 
finished, there seemed a pause, and a voice 
was heard, "Let us make man in our own 
irxiage, after our likeness." " And God ere- 



70 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS 

ated man in his own image, in the image of 
God, created he him, male and female cre- 
ated he them." If this language is inspira- 
tion, I cannot but believe it sets aside evolu- 
tion, and teaches that man was an order of 
creation infinitely distinguished from any- 
thing previousely made. This is the view 
which has dominated and will dominate the 
convictions of the world. 

But we are told many of the narratives of 
the Old Testament are so improbable it be- 
comes necessary in an age like this to resort 
to allegory, if we expect anyone to believe 
them. The motive in saying this may be all 
right, but we doubt the assertion. We en- 
tertain the impression that these narratives 
render the Old Testament not only attrac- 
tive, especially to the young, but that they 
are replete with valuable instruction. 

For example, the genesis of woman in- 
volves a lesson of immeasurable importance, 
as the context suggests. It is an object 
lesson setting forth the unity of the family, 
the oneness of man and wife, and the ten- 
der, interesting and endearing relations 



ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. *]\ 

they sustain to each other. "A man shall 
leave father and mother and cleave unto his 
wife," and the relation shall be so close as 
practically to cancel their individuality 
and make the two a unit — so united that 
separate interests and discord would be 
excluded. God thus kindly impressed upon 
our race in its infancy, truth, which, had it 
been practically accepted, what an ocean of 
tears it would have saved ! Who would 
cancel the great lesson ? 

For the alleged events of the garden, I 
see no occasion for resorting to allegory. 
It is certainly credible God commenced 
early to educate mural beings into subordi- 
nation to authority and law. I can con- 
ceive of no means more simple and feasible 
than the prohibition to eat of one of the 
trees of the garden. 

But the tempter was there; of course he 
was there, and probably just where God could 
make the best use of him in perfecting his 
plans of mercy ; not the men reared where 
there are no temptations, dangers or battles 
are the kind God needs. The way to insure 



72 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

the safety of our ships is not to attempt to 
banish all storms from the deep, but it is to 
build them so strong they can outride the 
wildest tempests that sweeps over the 
waters. 

In the garden God began rearing men 
who can be trusted anywhere or in any 
work. This may be in part the object of 
this earthly life. God commits the use of 
one talent to man to make it safe to intrust 
him with ten talents by and by. 

It is not certain the animal employed by 
the tempter to deceive the woman was the 
serpent before it was doomed to crawl on 
the ground and eat dust. It might have 
been the parrot or the gazelle. 

This is not the only instance on record in 
which the tempter has spoken through other 
lips than his own. The apostle plainly sanc- 
tions this narrative as historical. "I fear," 
is his language, "lest by any means as the 
serpent beguiled Eve through his craftiness, 
your mind should be corrupted from the 
simplicity and purity that is toward Christ." 
Another monument was lifted bearing wit- 



ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 73 

ness to-day, and will to the end of time to 
the historic accuracy of this narrative. I 
refer to the curse denounced against the 
serpent. " I will put enmity between thee 
and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed. It shall bruise thy head 
and thou shalt bruise his heel." This curse 
struck its roots deep into the human race 
and lingers there still unrelieved and una- 
bated. There is no other animal on the 
earth, or in the sea from which men shudder 
and shrink, as from the serpent kind. The 
name almost creates a shudder. 

There were two trees in the garden with 
names, one called the " Tree of the Knowl- 
edge of Good and Evil," the other the 
"Tree of Life." There is no evidence they 
differed essentially from each other or from 
other trees in the garden. We may suppose 
connected with the latter there was a prom- 
ise, either imaginary or actual, that man 
should not die so long as he ate of its fruit. 
After the pair had been expelled from the 
garden, we are told God placed the " flame 
of a sword" which turned every way to keep 



74 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

the way of the tree of life, lest man should 
put forth his hand and take of the Tree of 
Life" "and live forever;" in other words, 
should claim the promise they believed God 
had made, of exemption from death so long 
as they partook of its fruit — a promise which 
perhaps they knew God would have honored 
so long as its conditions were fulfilled. 

I am far from saying this is the correct in- 
terpretation of this somewhat difficult ex- 
pression "shalt live forever." It should be 
considered that probably we have given in 
this narrative the barest outline of the facts, 
and that the fuller statement might remove 
or modify the seeming difficulty. It should 
also be borne in mind, that inspiration is 
responsible only for the integrity of the 
thought, and a presentation of it, which 
would do it no injustice or violence; also 
that tropes and figures may be woven into 
literal narrative. 

Do you credit, it is asked, the story of 
Jonah ? I am compelled to do so, not be- 
cause refusing involves a denial of the inspi- 
ration, or the divine authority of the book — 



ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 75 

this I do not believe — but because the reasons 
for denying its historical character would 
apply with equal force to any other narra- 
tive or book in the sacred canon. (2) Be- 
cause it has the undisputed air of truthful- 
ness. It mentions the names of three then 
existing cities, and tells a wondrous tale 
about the great city of Ninevah, which 
would be criminal were it not true. (3) The 
whole history is self-consistent. It is won- 
derful that the preaching of a lone 
stranger should have shaken, from center to 
circumference, one of the greatest capitols 
of the world, as though earthquakes were 
beneath it. All this is explained and made 
credible by the probable fact that the mar- 
vellous experience of this stranger in the 
belly of a great fish, had become a mat- 
ter of public notoriety, and king and peo- 
ple believed he was a prophet of God. 
(4) But the reason above all others for 
crediting the book, is the plain endorsement 
by Christ. The man who denies that 
"Jonah-was three days and three nights in 
the whale's belly," and "The men of Nine- 



?6 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

vah repented at the preaching of Jonah," 
has a difficult problem to solve. 

While allegorical interpretation of the 
Mosaic records may not clash with the doc- 
trine of inspiration, the question is apposite. 
What is gained by such an interpretation ? 
The presumption is against it, and so are 
the teachings of Christ and his apostles. It 
requires strong reasons to justify it. 

If these alleged events are symbols, what 
do they symbolize ? What truths are 
couched beneath Abel's murder, beneath the 
history of the flood, or the sublime and aw- 
ful utterances and pageantry of Sinai ? Can 
any allegory ever conceived of deepen 
their impressiveness ? Can any theory sur- 
pass the grandeur and value of the simple 
events themselves ? No, I answer, or even 
approach them. From these solemn and 
grand events to any allegorical interpret- 
ations is an infinite descent. 

The events of Hebrew history from Abra- 
ham to the entrance of his posterity into 
Palestine are so interlinked as to be little 



ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 77 

other than a continuous narrative. If the 
name Adam stands, as the critics claim, not 
for an individual but for the human race, 
Cain and Able are myths, and the sacrifices of 
one, the sad history of the other, and the 
city he built are all myths. Making the 
name of Adam stand for the race, makes 
havoc of some events of his life. For ex- 
ample, it makes Genesis 5:3 read thus: 
" And the human race lived thirty years, and 
begat a son and called his name Seth, and 
the days of the human race after he begat 
Seth were eight hundred years, and he begat 
sons and daughters, and all the days of the 
human race were eight hundred and thirty 
years and he died." 

If Abraham was a myth we must erase the 
oppression of his descendents in Egypt, and 
our critics must forego the pleasure of de- 
nouncing the extermination of the Ca- 
naanites. It seems to me logically neces- 
sary to make the account wholly allegori- 
cal or wholly historical; a part history and a 
part myth makes patchwork. 



?8 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

We repeat the question — what is gained 
by such interpretation ? Nothing, I answer; 
on the contrary it involves an amazing loss, 
a loss in the field of literature the world can 
poorly afford. It virtually erases the oldest 
and some of the most valuable history ever 
committed to writing — history of untold 
value, because confirmed by the divine en- 
dorsement. It virtually blots out history 
which antedates the oldest records of the 
rocks beneath us, and reaches back to the 
creation ; histories which give us the name, 
and, in part, the life of the first man who 
ever trod this globe ; some of the first words 
ever spoken, some of the first deeds ever 
performed, and blots them out irretrievably. 
And what is gained by it ? Nothing ! It is 
only dropping the substance, seizing the 
shadow, and loosing both. Could any rob- 
bery be more colossal ? 

Still more disastrous is its effect in the 
realm of religion. An allegorical interpre- 
tation, unless the obvious meaning of the 
writer, or demanded by the context, is not 



AELEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 79 

inspiration, it is mere human opinion, sub- 
stituted for the word of God. It may be 
truth, but it is not the truth the Holy Spirit 
intended to convey, and carries no divine 
authority and is of no more value than 
other writing. 

We deprecate the liberty taken by many 
of the critics with the Bible. Its tendency 
is to destroy all sense of its sacredness, and 
to undermine all confidence in its divine 
authority. Teach a child the Bible does 
not mean what it says, assure him man was 
not made of the dust of the ground, that 
God did not breathe into his nostrils the 
breath of life, but that man was made out of 
lower animals ; that the story of Joseph and 
of Jonah, which interested him so much, are 
stories written to convey some important 
truth concealed beneath the language, and 
you destroy his confidence in the Bible. No 
judicious Christian parent would allow such 
instruction imparted to his child. This in- 
terpretation is but a repetition of the old 
slander, "The Bible is an instrument on 



80 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

which any tune can be played," and no slan- 
der has proved more pernicious in its influ- 
ence. The Christian world insist the word 
of God shall be treated with at least the re- 
spect and deference due ordinary history, 
and that its awful verities shall not be trifled 
with. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ARE THE TWO TESTAMENTS IDENTICAL 

IN SPIRIT? 

The objection to the Old Testament hav- 
ing the most weight, and presenting most 
difficulty is probably its alleged incongruity 
with the New. While it is admitted its 
trend, on the whole, makes for righteous- 
ness, it is claimed large portions of it incul- 
cate the spirit of revenge, war, bloodshed, 
hatred to enemies, and cruel disregard for 
human suffering and life, contrasting with 
the spirit of Christ and the love which is 
breathed from every page of the New 
Testament. 

In discussing this matter our first question 
may very appropriately be, Are the object- 
ors sure they clearly understand what is the 
spirit of Christ, and the true nature of the 
love he enjoined ? This is the crucial point 
in this whole discussion, to which the writer 
invites the special attention of his readers. 

81 



82 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

The word love is used in the new Testa- 
ment in two distinct senses — (i) as an 
emotion or feeling; (2) as a principle or 
choice, called, respectively, emotional love 
and moral love. In the former sense it is 
used in 2d Cor. 5:14, "The love of God hath 
been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy 
Ghost," in the latter sense in the divine 
law, u Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart"; "Thou shalt love thy 
thy neighbor as thyself" ; "Love your ene- 
mies" ; " Love is the fulfilling of the Lr^y" ; 
and generally in the New Testarr.eat. 
Though these two kinds of love u?,i;al!y, 
not universally, accompany each other, and 
often so blend as to be hardly distinguisha- 
ble in consciousness, they are widely dis- 
tinct, and a greater mistake is hardly possi- 
ble than to confound them. They are phe- 
nomena of different mental faculties, one of 
the sensibility, the other of the will. One is 
utterly devoid the moral element, never a,n 
object of obligation. There is not a com 
mand in the Bible which can be either 
obeyed or violated by emotion of a./.y kind, 



ARE THE TWO TESTAMENTS IDENTICAL ? 83 

while the latter, moral love, includes and 
exhausts all obligation. Nothing in the 
universe is required of a moral being, other 
than to love. It is "the whole law and the 
prophets," " The fulfilling of the law." Love 
is the synonym of virtue, holiness, righteous- 
ness, religion pure and undefiled. The hu- 
man mind never recognizes, nor can it con- 
ceive of any obligation other than to love. 
Can it be that emotional love is holiness 
or any part of it ? A mother in the city in 
which I reside discovered her little child 
playing on the railroad track, while the 
train was coming on with terrible speed. 
She made a frantic effort to rescue her 
darling, but failed. It was crushed to death, 
and they took that poor mother home a 
maniac. Here was love stronger than 
death. How gladly that mother would have 
died to save her child ! So far as that love 
was emotion, was it that holiness without 
which no man shall see God ? If so, no 
man, and not even the lower animal, is des- 
titute of it. 



84 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

Does feeling of any kind constitute holi- 
ness ? The ancient Jews evidently thought 
so. "They took delight in approaching 
unto God as a nation that did righteousness." 
The voice of their religious teachers was to 
them as "a very lovely song of one that 
hath a pleasant voice, and can play well 
on an instrument." Yet they were aw- 
fully wicked. So to-day thousands be- 
lieve, and thousands at the altar of God 
teach, and thousands are cherishing such 
emotions as proof of their title to mansions 
in the skies ; and going up to their great 
account victims of a terrible deception. 
Almost any emotion toward God may, for a 
season at least coexist in hearts in awful 
antithesis to the authority of God. There 
is no more sin or holiness in our emotions 
than in the clothing we put on. Oblivious- 
ness to this truth is "Christianity's millstone." 

This is perfectly consistent with the truth 
that real attachment, emotional love for 
God and for his Son Jesus Christ, is the off- 
spring and the best evidence of a sanctified 
heart, and in value above all price. They 



ARE THE TWO TESTAMENTS IDENTICAL? 85 

constitute the peace of God passing under- 
standing here, and the unending awards of 
the hereafter. But they are rather a gift 
than a subject of command, an experience 
rather than an exercise. It is unphilosoph- 
ical to require them, as an effort to feel is 
the best w^ay to preclude feeling. 

How preposterous is the idea, that the 
one supreme imperative of the moral world, 
including all others, requires feeling; and 
how doubly preposterous the idea that feel- 
ing meets and exhausts all obligation ; that 
all that mother, of whom I have spoken, 
owed her child, was feeling for it, and this 
is all the claim a dying world has upon the 
church, or God has upon his people. Is it 
emotion the divine law enjoins or is it good 
will to being ? 

Does the command, "Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself," in other words, thou 
shalt love all men up to the degree thou 
lovest thyself — or all men equally — mean 
thou shalt feel the same affection for the 
brutal depraved man you do for the little 
toddlings that gather round your table and 



86 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

your hearthstone ? Obedience to such a 
command ( i ) is not possible. (2) We do 
not owe such men our affection. (3) Con- 
ferring them would be conferring no favor. 
(4) God does not love them in this sense. 
He's " angry with the wicked every day." A 
command to be born in the moon would be 
just as feasible and just as rational. 

But this is the love our critics find in the 
New Testament, and charge the Old with 
being incongruous with it. We admit the 
justice of the charge. The sacred writers of 
the Old Testament never indulged in that 
kind of maudlin sympathy that assumes God 
is too good to punish sin and maintain or- 
der in his domain. 

We come to the supreme question, What 
is love?. Christ defines this word so fre- 
quently and so distinctly it would seem im- 
possible to mistake its meaning. "This," he 
says, " is the love of God, that ye keep his 
commandments." Again he says, "This is 
the love of God, that }^e walk after his com- 
mandments," "He that hath my command- 
ments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth 



ARE THE TWO TESTAMENTS IDENTICAL ? 8) 

me! 1 He gives us the meaning with unmis- 
takable distinctness in the parable of the 
man who on his way from Jerusalem to 
Jericho fell among thieves. In this picture 
we have love personified in the good Samar- 
itan, and selfishness, its opposite, personified 
in the priest and the Levite, and feeling has 
nothing to do with either. 

But more distinctly still, if possible, we 
have love presented in Luke 6:27: " Love 
your enemies. Do good to them that perse- 
cute you ; bless them that curse you, and 
pray for them that despitefully use you." 
Again, Luke 6 135 : " Love your enemies and 
do them good, lend never despairing, and 
your reward shall be great, and ye shall be 
the sons of the Highest, for he is kind to 
the unthankful and the evil." This is love 
in the New Testament sense. It crops out 
in perhaps an hundred places in the Word 
of God. The New Testament is ablaze 
with it. It is the spirit of Christ and of 
heaven, and of those " spirits of bliss who 
bow their bright wings to a world such as 



88 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

this." It is the spirit of self-sacrifice for the 
welfare of others. 

Love is a choice, I have said ; of what is it 
the choice ? But one answer is possible, but 
one thing in this universe is worth choosing. 
That is good. This includes all value. The 
great Edwards defines love as "The choice 
of good to being in general." Love and 
benevolence are synonyms, the former the 
Bible, the latter the scientific name for 
the same thing. It is consecration to the 
work, the only work in which God en- 
gages, that of filling every heart that pul- 
sates with joy, and every mouth with song. 
There are two ways of accomplishing this 
great result. In other words, love has two 
modes of expression, (i) promoting good, 
(2) repressing evil. We have an illustration 
of one in the prayer, " Father forgive them 
for they know not what they do," of the 
other in the denunciation, "Ye serpents, ye 
generation of vipers, how can ye escape the 
damnation of hell. Fill ye up therefore the 
measure of your fathers." Both of these 
are expressions of love — the one as fully 






ARE THE TWO TESTAMENTS IDENTICAL ? 89 

and as truly as the other. They are both 
the legitimate outgushing of a supreme de- 
votion to the welfare of being. 

We find another illustration in the verdict 
of the great day. To the one class it is, 
"Come ye blessed of my father, inherit the 
kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world." To the other, " Depart 
from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels." Every 
thoughtful mind must recognize these two 
verdicts as expressions of the same spirit, 
made in the interests of the highest good — 
equally the outbreathings of love ; perhaps 
of the two, the latter is the greater — at least 
it costs the greater sacrifice of feeling. In 
a thousand instances the voice of the Judge 
has grown husky and tremulous, and the 
tear has started as he pronounced the sen- 
tence of death upon a fellow-man, but never 
when he pronounced the verdict of ac- 
quittal. 

Are we quite sure the doom of the Canaan- 
ites was not the outcome of love, and the 
demand of the highest good ? and shall we 



90 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

denounce it as unwise and cruel, and reject 
the Old Testament for ascribing it to divine 
agency? Are the critics aware that calling 
their extermination unwise is an assertion 
that it was not demanded by the highest 
good ? and that it is arrogating to them- 
selves more knowledge and wisdom than 
the world will give them credit for ? How 
do they know what are the demands and 
exigencies of a kingdom which reaches out 
over immensity and eternity ? 

The presumption is God was the author 
of the overthrow, and will frail man, the 
child of yesterday, sit in judgment upon 
Him who is from everlasting to everlasting ? 
The insect perched upon the dome of St. 
Peters, criticizing that vast structure, is a 
philosopher compared with that man. 

We can safely challenge any man to put 
his finger upon any act, or upon the ap- 
proval of any act ascribed by any sacred 
writer, to God, which can be shown to be 
detrimental to the highest welfare of being. 
This is the only standard by which the 
divine ways can be judged. On the pre- 



ARE THE TWO TESTAMENTS IDENTICAL ? 9I 

sumption the Bible is the word of God, he 
who objects to the morality or wisdom of 
anything ascribed to him, assumes himself 
to be wiser than the Ruler of all worlds. 

Perhaps the objection urged against the 
Bible having most influence, is the alleged 
spirit of revenge which breathes through 
much of the book, notably through what are 
termed the imprecatory Psalms, the spirit, 
which of all others, is the most perfect an- 
tithesis to that of Christ and the New Test- 
ament. Can there be, it is asked, any wider 
contrast than that between the prayer, 
''Father forgive them, for they know not 
what they do," offered in the agony of 
crucifixion, and that of the 69th Psalm, "Let 
their table become to them a snare. Let 
their eyes be darkened that they see not. 
Pour out thine indignation upon them, and 
let thy fiercest anger overtake them, for 
they persecute him that thou hast smitten." 
Or the imprecation of the Hebrew captive, 
"O, Daughter of Babylon, that art to be 
destroyed ; happy shall he be that rewardeth 
thee, as thou hast served us, happy shall he 



92 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones 
against the stones." 

But is it not conceivable that these 
prayers, so diverse apparently, still are out- 
gushings of precisely the same spirit ? an 
insatiable, overmastering longing for the 
overthrow of violence, cruelty and wrong, 
and the establishment of " Peace on earth, 
and good will among men?" We know 
but little about the provocations which ex- 
torted the language of such Psalms. They 
came from hearts weary, and sick, and 
broken, under daily oppression and wrong 
unendurable. The latter, probably both, 
were written during the captivity, when men 
and women and little ones were ground to 
the earth, and fed on bread 

"Such as captive's tears 
Have watered many a thousand years." 

What can so wring a mother's heart, as to 
tear her little one from her arms and dash 
it against the stones ? No language can 
exaggerate such cruelty. Is the prayer 
wrong, that God will rid the world of such 
monsters ? Who did not pray, who pray at 



ARE THE TWO TESTAMENTS IDENTICAL. 93 

all, that H. H. Holmes, that incarnation of 
murder, might be brought to condign pun- 
ishment ; and that all such creatures as the 
Sultan of Turkey and the Captain General 
of Cuba, should be made an example which 
shall make the ears of men tingle. 

The truth is, the more benevolent a man, 
the more of the spirit of Christ he possesses, 
the more intensely he hates wrong, and the 
more earnestly will he pray for its over- 
throw, and for the reign of righteousness 
and peace. It is possible to interpret such 
Psalms as expressions of hate and ill will, 
but not necessary, nor logical. The best 
canons of interpretation require that a 
book, if it can be done without violence to 
its language, shall be construed into har- 
mony with itself. Is this worst interpreta- 
tion in harmony with the book " ordained 
to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind 
up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty 
to the captives, and the opening of the 
prison to them that are in bonds, and to 
comfort all that mourn?" Where else can 
be found such sublime conception of God ? 



94 THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CRITICS. 

such incentives to purity and truthfulness ? 
Where else are falsehood, hypocracy and 
cruelty more emphatically denounced and 
discouraged ? and by what other law so 
severely punished ? And where else is such 
protection thrown around the stranger and 
the poor, or such longing breathed for 
human welfare ? It would be gross injustice 
to translate those imprecatory Psalms into 
expressions of revenge and hate. 

It is the /act of the divine authority of the 
Old testament which differentiates it from 
all other books except the New, and gives 
it a value surpassing human thought. The 
Apostle refers to the Old Testament, when 
he speaks of the exceeding great and pre- 
cious promises ; for example, the promise in 
Isaiah 42-: 16, "I will bring the blind by a 
way they know not, and in paths that they 
know not will I lead them ; I will make 
darkness light before them, and crooked 
places straight, and I will not forsake them." 
What is it worth ? If human, nothing ! If 
divine, solar systems are poor in com- 
parison. Isaiah 53:6, "The Lord hath laid 



ARE THE TWO TESTAMENTS IDENTICAL f 95 

on him the iniquity of us all." What is that 
declaration worth ? Ask the millions in 
whose hearts it is a song ever singing, the 
millions who have reposed upon it with 
triumph and gratitude unspeakable, in the 
hour when things seen and tempered were 
fading out, and the unseen and eternal were 
rising on their view, to whom it will prove 
the theme of songs as unending as immor- 
tality and eternal life. Is there a living man 
who would eliminate the divine from the 
Old Testament, and cancel promises un- 
measured by the wealth of all worlds ? 

I think that wonderful seer on the Isle of 
Patmos refers to the Old Testament in say- 
ing, 'T testify unto every one that heareth 
the words of the prophecy of this book, if 
any man shall add unto them, God shall add 
unto him the plagues which are written in 
this book, and if any man shall take away 
from the words of the book of this prophecy, 
God shall take away his part from the tree 
of life, and out of the Holy City which are 
written in this book." 



